SPIRITUAL FULNESS AND FULFILMENT
Matthew 5:6
It is possible to be spiritually filled with the fulness
of God and of Christ, and be fulfilled. If not, the Lord Jesus Christ would not
have taught us to hunger and thirst after it. Righteousness and fulness of
spiritual blessings are not a mirage: they are real. That is why Jesus
instructed us to hunger and thirst after it so as to be filled with it. “Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled.” He wants us to be
so filled with righteousness that we not
only live in it but also influence
others around us with the righteousness of God. Christ-like righteousness is
the gateway to full redemption and spiritual fulness in our lives. All we need
is to be in Christ and for Him to be in us. Only then can we thirst and hunger
for this fulness which will lead to a full and fulfilled life (Colossians 1:9;
Ephesians 4:13; 3:19,20).
1. HINDRANCES TO
THE PROMISED SPIRITUAL FULNESS
Matthew 5:6; Proverbs 27:7; Revelation 3:17; Mark 4:19; 1
Corinthians 4:8; Genesis 33:9; Deuteronomy 6:10-13; 8:11-14; Psalm 69:19,20;
Luke 18:9; Daniel 12:3,4; Amos 8:11,12.
“The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the
hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” When a soul is
full already, even if with the husk that swine eats, he will loathe, belittle,
shun and jettison the honeycomb. In the same way, the feeling of
self-satisfaction leads many people to reject the Lord’s gift and favour that
would have filled their lives with joy and happiness. When a person does not
know his true spiritual state, like the Laodicean Christians, he usually
overrates himself, saying, “I am rich, and increased with
goods, and have need of nothing” whereas in the sight of God, he
is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”.
What a great hindrance to spiritual fulness! The cares of this world – what to
eat and drink, ceremonies, deceitfulness of riches, inordinate desires – are
responsible for the absence of the fulness of God in the lives of many Christians.
When, like the Corinthian Christians, believers push down others to steal the
limelight, they put hindrances before themselves. Self-satisfaction is one of
the great clogs in the wheel of spiritual progress and fulness; so also are
ignorance, material prosperity, suffering, search for earthly knowledge,
distractions of all kinds. Whatever quenches our spiritual thirst also hinders
our spiritual fulness.
2. HUNGER AND
THIRST FOR THE PROMISED SPIRITUAL FULNESS
Matthew 5:6; Isaiah 62:1-3,7; Psalm 62:1,5-8; Lamentations
3:49,50; Acts 9:8-11; Luke 11:5-13; Isaiah 40:28-31.
All who sincerely desire and earnestly seek God always
find Him. Earnestness in seeking God, fervency in praying to Him for the
bestowal of the promised fulness will always be rewarded. To find, we need to
seek. To have the promised fulness demands a resolve to pray without ceasing,
waiting on the Lord until it actually happens. The passion must be there at all
times. “… give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make
Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” Lack and limitations in our
Christian lives should make us to seek the Lord without interruption. Though he
was the last to be converted of the apostles, Paul the Apostle did more than
the rest of the apostles because of his waiting on the Lord at the commencement
of his Christian faith with prayer and fasting. Likewise, if we want the
fulness of God, we must wait on the Lord and pray importunately. If we have not
been receiving, it shows we have not been asking with passion: “For
every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that
knocketh it shall be opened.”
3. THE HUNGRY AND
THE THIRSTY SATISFIED, FILLED AND FULFILLED
Matthew 5:6; Psalm 72:6-8; Jeremiah 23:5,6; Zephaniah
3:13-17; Ephesians 5:9,18; John 7:37-39; Ephesians 3:16-21.
Satiation with the spiritual fulness promised by the Lord
can only come as we take away all hindrances. Like Jacob, Isaac, Elisha,
Elijah, David, Samuel had, we need favour and fulness from God. When we put
ourselves in a place where the fulness of God can pass through and fill us, God
will pour Himself into us “like rain upon the mown
grass: as showers that water the earth.”
None can force cool, refreshing water upon the
non-thirsty; you must indicate your thirst by responding to the Lord. “If
any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as
the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should
receive...”. The fulness of God is available for anybody who
will ask the Lord for His filling and fulfilment.
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